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He said the streets named for Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson should be changed.

Cuomo said it was especially important following events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was killed while demonstrating against a white nationalist rally.

An email sent to the Army seeking comment was not immediately answered.

The streets named for the generals run through Fort Hamilton.

"More than 50,000 New Yorkers -- more people than from any other state -- died servingin the Civil War, the war that was fought to preserve the union and to prevent a new nation built on the foundation of race-based slavery from arising in America," Cuomo wrote in an op-ed. "White supremacy and white nationalism contradict our core American values. Those who carry the torch for those supposed causes, who feel empowered, need to understand that our country does not stand with them."

Leaders of a New York Episcopal diocese have removed two plaques honoring Lee from a church property in Brooklyn.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy markers commemorated the spot where Lee was said to have planted a tree while serving in the Army at Fort Hamilton in the 1840s.

Two decades later, he became commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

The plaques on the grounds of a closed church were taken down Wednesday.

The diocese said it forgot the plaques were on the church property.

Representatives said they were removed after neighbors and a reverend asked about them.

The plaques will be archived at the diocese headquarters on Long Island.